He's Adopted
by Fallyn Irlandes
Summary: Behold, a fix-it fic for that one-liner that drove me crazy because I couldn't make sense of it. I have now made sense of it, and inside you will find Thor's thoughts before and up to his maddening, seemingly-out-of-character line. "He's adopted."


Thor really isn't having a good day. First his father tells him that Loki is apparently trying to take over Midgard, then has to watch Odin Allfather use more dark magic than he had ever wanted to see, then he finally gets to Midgard—Earth— and Loki spits the name _Odinson _in his face like a curse, then he is slammed into by a man of iron, then he encounters the rest of this group who are trying to defend their Earth and they eye him with distrust for the simple fact that he and Loki are from the same place, and then—

"That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor repeats. He remembers, suddenly, the look of manic fury on his brother's face when he'd deduced Thor had been changed by Jane Foster. By Darcy. By Erik Selvig. He remembers the Destroyer sent after them. He knows his brother will go to extreme lengths to get his revenge.

The scientist clarifies, "He's an astrophysicist."

He says it as though that defines who he is, defines why Loki needs him.

"He's a friend," Thor corrects.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," says the woman attired in what he guesses must be some kind of armor. She appears to be a warrior, and reminds him of Sif, the way Jane had with her feisty ways. Selvig was not a warrior. He drank well, but he was not— could not protect— and Loki had him. "Along with one of ours," she adds, looking around.

Thor has the briefest moment of knowing that his brother would know what she was thinking and use it to his advantage because that's what he did what he always did and—

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," the man with the shield— though it wasn't here at the moment— interrupts. Thor has a flash of Odin, patiently teaching him the art of strategy while he just wanted to know how to properly smash things so they couldn't get up again (which he had thought a very sound strategy) while his brother listened eagerly to everything their father said.

He hears Loki's voice in his mind, remembers what he had said, the piercing way he said it.

_Your father. He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?_

_It doesn't matter! _Thor wants to shout at Loki until he realizes it is true. _Even if you are not of my blood, you are my brother, and—_

The man continues, "He's not leading an army from here."

Oh? They don't know his brother, then. None of them do.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," the scientist chimes in. Thor wants to roll his eyes the way his brother would. He had come here for the express purpose of stopping his brother. It didn't get any more 'focused' than that. But then the scientist continues. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats—"

Thor feels himself getting angry. How dare he, how dare any of them presume to know his brother? And furthermore, presume to _insult _him?

"You can _smell _crazy on him," the scientist finishes.

Thor is angry, at this man who dares insult his brother right in front of him, slightly angry at Loki and a bit at himself and any time he is angry at himself he directs it outward. He and Loki are not so different there. "Have care how you speak," he warns in a tone anyone from Asgard and even from the other realms know to respect and obey, stepping forward half unconsciously. He sees the scientist draw back in surprise and out of the corner of his eye sees the warrior woman flinch and narrow her eyes, as though studying him to determine if he is a threat or not.

He can almost hear his brother's words in his ear, words he had never heeded and had only now wished he had.

_Thor, stop and think._

Think. Reason. Rationalize. Analyze. Figure out what you are thinking and say it.

"Loki may be beyond reason," he says, and hates it when the scientist gives a half nod of acceptance, "but he is of Asgard." His home, does this man understand that? Do any of them even realize who they are dealing with? Thor, son of Odin, crown prince of Asgard? "And he is my brother," he finishes. His tone is low, even, calm, but quietly furious.

Asgard had always thought Thor and Loki such opposites, but really, the two were not so different. He has to keep his gaze focused on the scientist instead of looking around the room for his brother. _Look at me, _he wants to say with his eyes, _I'm being calm and rational, but still threatening. Just like you always said—_

But no. Because Loki is gone now, held in a glass cage, and even if he wasn't his brother is gone, perhaps forever. His little brother who said he loved him and had always meant it fell off the bridge— _blamed Thor for it— _and into the abyss and he _had _died. Thor had mourned him, mourned his brother—

Then mourned the fact that Loki had never even been his brother.

Adopted, and not even that, he was from Jotunheim.

_Jotunheim,_ the race Thor had once sworn to destroy and had almost started a war with. The race that had once before tried to take over Midgard. Loki was adopted from a cold planet that was nothing like Asgard and you would think he would be overjoyed to know that Odin had taken him in, that he had been adopted by the king of Asgard, the queen, and—

Asgard's prince.

Thor hadn't known the truth, of course, but…

He had always looked upon Loki as a brother, and—

He wasn't.

He was adopted.

That revelation had so thoroughly shaken _Thor's _world that it was no wonder _Loki _had lashed out even harder than he himself would have.

_Now if you'll excuse me, I have to destroy Jotunheim._

Trying to destroy every conceivable tie between himself and the place he had been born to, and then trying to destroy _himself—_

Then the warrior woman is speaking again. "He killed 80 people in two days."

Thor has just enough time to realize that he may have started to alienate these would-be defenders of earth, who perhaps promised to be brothers-in-arms, just enough time to realize what he is thinking, what he's been thinking ever since he found out— _Loki is adopted Loki is not really my brother but he has to be because he was and we fought together and played together and grew up together and doesn't that mean anything why is he doing this why— _and just enough time to realize that he has begun to speak before he does.

"He's adopted._"_


End file.
